"No news is good news" is just a saying people usually apply to stop themselves from worrying about someone far away not sending any news. This, of course, is silly as any bad thing such as being eaten by an alligator can stop someone from sending news to anyone they had intended to send it to.

This, but perhaps in a lower degree, was how Alphonse felt as he walked in the corridor in the Hogwarts Express toward J.M.'s compartment. He had not received anything from him in the summer, not even a reply to all the letters he had sent. Apparently again, Jeff had seemed to read his face, weirdly enough without him noticing Jeff had glanced at him.

"Oh, I'm sure he's okay, mommy," he suddenly said from nowhere, snickering. He then followed in a more justified tone, "don't worry, I'm sure he had a good reason for not replying to you're letters. Come to think of it, he hasn't replied to any of mine too, aside from the one just before he had left the Leaky Cauldron," he finished.

"Yeah, I hope so."

"Another thing I don't get," added Jeff, "is that he always seemed unusually in a hurry."

"Now who's worrying?" replied Alphonse smiling.

Alphonse was still snickering when they had seen J.M.'s reflection on one of the compartment doors facing one full of Slytherins. Despite his effort to hide his face, Alphonse and Jeff were quickly sent a multiple of curses from the now opened Slytherin compartment door. There, he saw Laurene, giving an evil smile, her brown eyes twinkling under her black hair, as three of her fellow Slytherins, all guys, were shouting at him. J.M.'s compartment then opened where Alphonse and Jeff ran in, giving J.M. thankful looks. His straight, unruly black hair didn't change over the summer. It covered half of his brown right eye and reached bellow his ears. His showed an unusual emotionless smile on his long, thin face

"What the hell guys," he suddenly said, changing his emotionless smile to a more warm and friendly one. "Haven't you guys learned in our four years at Hogwarts to not come near Slytherins as much as possible?"

"Yeah, yeah," replied Jeff, "and by the way, nice compartment location."

"Well, unless you guys wanted to wait for the prefects inside their compartment for them to finish their giving of instructions," J.M. said, not noticing Alphonse's involuntary hopeful lurch, "this was the only empty compartment available."

"Yeah, I'm sure it had nothing to do with Laurene being next door," interjected Alphonse.

J.M. gave a short smile and turned a little red. "Shut up," he said under his breath.

"So why were you looking for us?" asked Jeff just as J.M. stopped being red.

"Oh, I see you're cousin passed the message," he replied, looking at Alphonse. "Sorry about not being able to get in contact. A lot has happened to me this summer."

"What could stop you from even writing for--," started Alphonse, but was cut shot by J.M.

"Hey, have you guys seen the Prophet for today?" He tossed the Daily Prophet to Jeff. He opened it. The front page had Greivous Malfoy, the Minister of Magic, looking curtly to his sideways, his blood red eyes ever prominent, and his light beard highly showing.

Search Continues

by Rebecca D. Skeeter

Minister Malfoy continues his first job priority, the search for the otherwise known as the extinct creatures all over the wizarding world. "I, for one, do not believe the claims of these creatures being extinct, but are otherwise only scared because of the attempt to wipe them out a century ago," the minister commented when asked about the claims of the said creature's extinction.

As all know from our past history lessons, Minister Amir, the minister from over a century ago, sent a plague over all creatures in the wizarding world to be wiped out for reasons unknown as of now, and then stopped by Albus Potter in a duel. Unfortunately, just as Amir was killed, he used all of his remaining power to produce a dark magic to finish all of the creatures off.

Minister, as mentioned, does not believe this and that they have merely come to hiding. "I would like to revive the once great and bountiful creatures in our world, and also to finish my ancestor's plan before me," he says when asked for his reasons for this continued search. As everyone knows, this search has gone on for half a century and instituted the first time the Malfoys have come to the Ministry.

for ways to help the search in your homes: see page 4

for Minister's new methods: see page 9

for inquiries when encountered: see page 7

After Alphonse and Jeff had finished, they looked up to find J.M. waiting for them to finish.

"Well?" he said as they finished.

"Well… what?" said Alphonse and Jeff together in reply.

He looked prominently at them, obviously expecting a better reaction. "Don't you get what they're doing?!"

Alphonse and Jeff looked blankly at him.

"The Minister wants the glory of being the Malfoy to find them and bring them back!" ha said as if saying it to himself. "He may look good in the comments he made there, but if you look at his methods and study them, you'll see they're so intense! And what do you think he'll do if they're actually hiding and he finds them? Do you think his real reasons are what he said there? What do you think he'll do when he find the drag--," he cut himself short just before finishing the sentence.

"What did you say?" said Jeff suspiciously.

"Yeah, and what do you mean when he find the drag what? Do you know something?" Alphonse said, going a step closer to J.M.

"You never used to care about this stuff," interjected Jeff, eying him.

J.M. turned his eyes around the room, looking for a way out of the conversation.

"Look, you guys--," he started, but was again cut short by the sound the train made as it reached Hogwarts. Alphonse and Jeff turned around for a moment, but when they turned again, J.M. had already slipped past them and was out the compartment door.